CHICAGO (WGN) — Ben Johnson’s synopsis of the Chicago Bears through four games was a lot like the weather outside in Chicagoland on Tuesday: a less-than-ideal canvas coated with dreary shades of gray and a smattering of rain.
“We’re still a work in progress. Some things we’re doing well, some things we’re not,” Johnson said. “I think [it’s] inconsistent nature with which we’re playing. We’re shooting ourselves in the foot quite a bit.”
The Bears are far from a complete team, and what they aren’t doing well across both sides of the ball is glaring.
This comes as the team prepares for its prime-time Monday night matchup against the Washington Commanders. It’s a rematch rife with headlines from last year’s absolute debacle (or classic, if seen from the viewpoint of a Commanders fan).
At 2-2, Chicago is treading water in a talented NFC North division. Here are several areas of concern the Bears need to address if they hope to see sunshine instead of more showers like they did the last time they took the field under the lights of Northwest Stadium.
The Shoddy Front Seven
The front seven on defense continues to struggle with both stopping the run and applying pressure to the quarterback.
Chicago’s defense ranks dead last against the run and is tied for last in team sacks—they’re giving up a whopping 164.5 yards rushing a game and have only five sacks to their name through four contests.
The good news in this department is that reinforcements appear to be on their way.
Nickel corner Kyler Gordon and linebacker TJ Edwards look primed to return for Week 6 after each dealt with their own hamstring injuries.
Gordon was listed as limited on the Friday injury report before the Bears’ Week 4 victory in Las Vegas, and has yet to make his season debut. In 2024, he ranked as a top 10 run defender among corners who had at least 282 defensive snaps against the run, according to Pro Football Focus.
Edwards was listed as out for Week 4 and has played in only one game this season—Chicago’s 52-21 demolition at the hands of the Detroit Lions, where he registered four tackles.
Edwards notched 129 combined tackles and a team-high 12 tackles-for-loss in 2024.
Chicago also opened up the 21-day practice window for defensive end Austin Booker and running back Travis Homer on Tuesday. Booker notched eight tackles and 4.0 sacks, which included a three-sack performance against the Miami Dolphins, this preseason, before he went down with a knee injury that landed him on injured reserve.
“He’s another guy that I thought you felt the pass rush there, particularly in the game setting,” Johnson said of Booker Tuesday. “He was a guy that was able to affect the quarterback, and that’s something that we talked about as a unit today—points of emphasis. Where can we improve? … affecting the quarterback, we’re not doing a good enough job of it.
“That’s really where I saw Booker making the biggest impact there in the preseason. So, we’ll see where he is now [that he’s] back on the practice field.”
The Run Game That Isn’t Running
While Chicago has displayed an inability to stop the run, they’ve also shown an inability to get it going on offense.
The Bears are 24th in the NFL in yards rushing per game (102.3), but the numbers would be much worse if they weren’t already buoyed by the performance of Caleb Williams.
Williams is the team’s second-leading rusher with 24 carries for 110 yards (4.6 YPC), while top running backs D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai both seem stuck in the mud. Swift has logged 56 carries for 187 yards (3.3 YPC) and Monangai isn’t doing much better. He has 17 carries for 62 yards (3.6 YPC) while primarily serving as Swift’s backup.
“Its going to take a little bit of time for our guys to all mesh together, and I think that’s what the tape looks like right now,” Johnson said. “We’re just not firing on all cylinders yet. Sometimes it can be the ball carrier not hitting the right spot. Other times, it’s just our combinations aren’t clean yet.
“It’s going to take everybody. It’s [the] quarterback, it’s [the] receivers, it’s [the] O-line, it’s [the] tight ends to go along with those runners. It’s a very complex question, but those guys are playing hard. They’re playing for each other. I think we’re doing a good job of getting that squared away, and I think good things will happen the more time we spend together.”
Penalty Problems, Pre-Snap And All
Before the NFL’s Week 5 slate of games skewed the numbers toward a more favorable penalty picture for the Bears, Chicago had the eighth-highest number of accepted penalties in the NFL with 34. 13 of those penalties have come before the snap, which ranked as the fifth-most in the NFL ahead of Week 5.
Heading into Week 6 against the Commanders, Johnson labeled addressing those penalties as “an emphasis for us here.”
“When I looked at where we were through the first four weeks, a lot of penalties,” Johnson said. “I want to say we were top five there on offense through four weeks. And so, we’re playing behind the sticks, and you can certainly feel that as I was calling [the game]. I give the guys a lot of credit.
“I feel like we were pretty good at getting back on track as much as we could, but it’s just not sustainable when you’re playing football that way. So, that’s going to be an emphasis for us here. Going forward, we’ve got to get the pre-snap penalties under control.”